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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

TRO: 3087 - Cortona

3087 is a Battletech alternate universe where The Jihad never happened. Instead, political fracturing continues in the wake of the technological and military upheavals of the 3050's. Its history is told through the pages and designs of TRO: 3087. With any luck this series will be the last anyone hears about 3087. Cortona (Block 1)OverviewThe Battle for Outreach changed the Wolf’s Dragoons. The response expected by the entire Inner Sphere was a half-cocked ground war waged by elite mercenaries against a proper state and Star League member. Instead, The Dragoons were eerily cool. Outreach rebuilt, the Dragoons rebuilt, and in January of 3068 Colonel Maeve Wolf announced that The Dragoons would be offering their technical expertise in the operation and maintenance of HPG stations. It wasn’t until 3070 that they had a major buyer, The Federated Suns, who brought them on to handle a single Class A HPG station with associated B stations.

It didn’t take long for The Word to react. A false flag operation disabled the HPG, but the Dragoons kept their contract with the use of their secret weapon; a Cortana omnimech equipped with a mobile HPG station pod. While not as convenient as a full HPG facility, it kept communications operating during the attack while repelling the Blakists.

Based off of the venerated Marauder II, the visually similar Cortana was pushed through production during the rebuilding of Blackwell. Despite a number of design flaws which have arisen over the years, there are currently no plans to release a Block 2. Only slight modifications have been made for Cortonas now manufactured on Capolla and Fomalhaut.

CapabilitiesThe Cortona is everything one expects from a Clan assault ‘Mech: tenacious, dangerous, and ponderous. As the preferred vehicle of Dragoons commanders, it’s often deployed to the front lines. Unlike most command units the Cortona is tasked with directing the fray within it. It has so far proven equal to the task.

Due to its cost of production, the Cortona is still rare after more than a decade, making it the subject of politicking, gambling, and even fistfights amongst senior Dragoons MechWarriors.

Then-Colonel Ju Nair-Waite put together a lance of Cortonas in Chi Regiment a year before his election to Sitting President of The Dragoons Pact, indicating that significant amounts of political, as well as tactical, power accompany the design.

Battle History It was an HPG transmission from Stacy Church’s Cortona that relayed the final battle ROMs of the Wolf Spider Battalion and Epsilon Regiment during Devil’s Day. The broadcast of the fighting showed evidence of up to four hidden Word of Blake regiments and linked them unequivocally to the nuclear weapons which scoured Outreach. Its presentation to The Star League and their censure of The Word for its crimes gave The Pact the political capital to isolate the Blakists and gain the upper hand in the long-running struggle between the two.

The Cortona is assigned to most Class A stations administered by The Dragoons Pact. While not all of those commands carry a mobile HPG pod (most estimates place the number built at fewer than four), the presence of a Cortona invites the possibility of a mobile, back-up HPG that can fight back against attempts to disable or capture it. In Capellan Confederation worlds administered by The Dragoons, a patrolling Cortona has become a clear symbol of The Dragoons’ presence for citizens who may never otherwise step foot inside of an HPG. News of rare fence-jumping asylum seekers has escaped The Confederation’s borders, embarrassing both the Dragoons and Sian. For their part, the Dragoons Pact is under an unusually strict confidentiality clause which limits their ability to make official comment on events within The Confederation.

Variants The Prime Cortona configuration carries a ground mobile HPG system. Its mission role is to protect the Dragoons’ ability to send HPG messages in the event a planet’s primary HPG is offline. Defensive measures, such as an ECM suite, an anti-missile system, and three jump jets are included to keep the HPG operational. Twin gauss rifles and an LRM 15 create a “deterrence radius” to head off threats.

The A Configuration carries an array of the largest guns available to the Dragoons Pact; ultra and LB/X autocannons are close-range alternatives to a paired gauss rifle and particle projection cannon.

Six advanced lasers are taxing for the B configuration’s heat dissipation abilities, even with the addition of seven more heat sinks. It’s mostly used as a stand-off fighter, but an LBX/10 autocannon and a trio of streak missile launchers allow it to swoop in to efficiently finish off damaged lances. The latest configuration is the C, which carries two of the Pact’s new hyper assault cannons, with more than eight tons of ammunition. A conventional gauss rifle provides additional punch for a ‘Mech that’s generally assigned to deal with aerospace fighters and vehicle detachments.